


y lo sabes

by yeats



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Blow Jobs, Getting Together, Hair-pulling, M/M, isn't it bromantic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-16 10:53:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13052535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeats/pseuds/yeats
Summary: Isco's never been good at patience.  (Or, a case study in getting what you want.)





	y lo sabes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inabathrobe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inabathrobe/gifts).



Isco wakes up from a dream of falling, to the low hum of circulated air at thirty thousand feet.

It's either four o'clock in the morning, or eight in the evening…. he set his watch when they landed in Japan, but his body never fully adjusted to the time zone. 

He sits upright, tilting his recliner seat forwards. The cabin lights have been dimmed, and the purple emergency lighting gives everything a strange, almost futuristic glow. Everyone else, it seems, is asleep.

The display tablet in the side of his seat says they're over Russia, somewhere at the top of the world. Eight more hours to go.

Isco scrolls through to the entertainment selection. They've got _El hormiguero_ , but when he hits play, only a buzzy static comes through on his headphones. 

He reaches up to hit the call button, but then the little dividing wall next to his seat slides down a crack.

"Yo." Only Marco's eyes are visible, but Isco can tell he's smiling. He's always smiling. "You up, dude?"

Isco pushes the divider the rest of the way down. "Can't sleep."

"You, too?" Marco's got his blanket pulled up over his head, so he looks like a painting of the Virgin Mary or something. "I slept for a little bit, but now I'm wide awake. I've never been on a plane ride this long before."

"We flew this exact flight last week," Isco says.

"Yeah, but going east to west takes longer than going west to east. Because of how the earth rotates -- I looked it up."

Isco smiles. God, he can't get over this kid, he's so fucking goofy. It's amazing. "I was gonna watch TV, but my headphones are busted."

"Fuck." 

Across the aisle, Keylor stirs in his sleep, snorting. They both freeze as though they've been caught doing something they shouldn't, kids sneaking out after curfew to cause trouble.

"Hey," Marco whispers once Keylor settles down again, "want to watch this movie with me? We can share."

Before Isco can say anything, Marco peels himself out of his blanket shawl, sliding it over both their laps and tucking himself in closer to Isco. He pops one earbud out of his left ear and passes it over. 

"Thanks," Isco says. 

"It's _Ocho apellidos catalanes_ ," Marco says quietly. "I'm already pretty far into it, though -- I can just start over." 

"No, that's okay, I'll figure it out." Isco shakes out his blanket and lays it atop Marco's, adding it to their cocoon. He tilts his seat back so they're both level and slides down to hook Marco's other earbud in his left ear. 

They're shoulder-to-shoulder, heads nearly brushing, knees pushed together. 

"Can you see okay?" 

"Yeah," Isco says. "Yeah, this is good."

"Okay, so this is what's happened so far," Marco murmurs. He narrates the plot to Isco, introducing each character, voice low and rumbly in his chest.

It's not a great movie, but something about watching it together makes it feel special, like a shared secret. By the time the music swells and Pau promises Rafa, "Si tú eres mi bro, yo soy tu picha," Isco's honestly a little emotional.

"That's us," he whispers to Marco. He doesn't know why he says it, really.

Marco laughs softly. The warmth of his exhaled breath prickles Isco's skin. Isco's never noticed how long his eyelashes are before, dark and thick and pretty like a girl's. "Definitely." 

Fuck, Isco thinks. _Fuck._

*-*-*-*

When Isco was six years old, he knocked his two front teeth out at once. It was summer, and he and his brother and some of the local kids were playing another round of the hybrid blend of tag and improvised obstacle-course running they only ever called "The Hunt." Younger and shorter than the others, Isco made up for it by being fast and fearless, willing to do what others wouldn't: scaling chain-link fences, jumping huge puddles that swallowed half the street… or dashing full-tilt around blind corners and tripping over an unseen step.

His mother screamed when she saw his bloody shirtfront, but somehow the gap in his mouth was the only injury he'd suffered. The next day, she marched him straight to the local football club and signed him up for their youth team, "so you'd have a way to channel all that energy, instead of breaking your neck or cracking your skull open on the street."

Isco's heard his mother tell the story hundreds of times over the years: to neighbors, relatives, ladies from church. By now he's not even sure if his memories from that day -- the blood across his Power Rangers t-shirt, the empty soda bottle his brother stored his teeth in, the blue-and-white tile of the emergency room floor -- are real, or just embellishment he's added to the skeleton of her story.

The only part he's sure he remembers, though, is the certainty that there was a faster way to get where he was going, that he could fly down the crooked alleyways of Arroyo de la Miel instead of having to slog through the swarms of tourists on the main thoroughfares... and how the coppery, woozy blood that flooded his mouth tasted almost sweet when he realized he'd beaten his brother home, because _he was right._

So yeah, Isco's never been good at patience.

*-*-*-*

He comes up with a plan over the winter break. Their first home match of the new year is a against Sevilla, in the Copa. After dinner at la Residencia, Isco invites Marco to watch _Ocho apellidos vascos._

"You know," he says, "since we already saw the sequel." He pitches his voice as disinterested as possible, but glances up at Marco, weaponizing those two centimeters of height difference between them. 

"Yeah." Marco licks his lips. "That sounds cool."

Patience is overrated.

An hour later, Rafa from Sevilla is masquerading as Antxon Arquiñano-Igartiburu-Erentxun-Gabilondo-Urdangarín-Otegi-Zubizarreta- Clemente, and Isco's palming Marco's cock through the slippery fabric of his track bottoms. They're splayed out across Isco's bed, the movie a convenient audio smokescreen for the sound Isco can't hold back when Marco sinks his hand into the snarl of Isco's hair and pulls. 

"Fuck," Isco hisses, "do that again."

Marco laughs -- he laughs a lot during sex, it turns out. Isco can't say he minds. "Are we even allowed to do this before a match?" 

"Well," Isco says, shamelessly pushing his head against Marco's hand so he'll take the hint, "I won't tell if you won't?" He's very chill and easygoing about these things but he's also going to fucking lose it if they stop. He slides his fingers under Marco's waistband and his briefs, thumb just managing to sweep the wet head of Marco's cock, for added incentive. 

Marco half-laughs, half-shudders, thrusting into Isco's hand and -- fuck, yes -- tugging Isco's hair again. 

"Sounds good to me," he says, and pulls Isco down for another kiss.

*-*-*-*

Isco's lacing his kicks in the locker room at Valdebebas when Sergio sits down next to him.

"So. Young Marco." 

The loop slips from Isco's fingers. "What?"

"Marco," Sergio says. "Sweet, young, nubile, delicate Marco." 

"--the _fuck?"_ Isco's head shoots up. Most of the guys have already headed out by now, just Isco’s luck. Toni's still packing up, but he very pointedly turns his back when Isco catches his glance -- clearly this is the sort of conversation where Toni pretends he can't speak enough Spanish to participate. (It's amazing how that still works for him.)

Sergio is looking at him serenely. "It's his golden birthday on Saturday. Twenty-one on the twenty-first of January.”

“That’s not a thing.” 

“You should celebrate with him,” Sergio says. 

Isco can’t tell whether that’s supposed to be innuendo. Honestly, it’s a little subtle, for Sergio. He doesn’t have time for the Sergio Ramos Experience tonight — his parents are flying in early for the match this weekend, and they’re bringing Isco, Jr.

He finally gets his fucking shoes tied, and hefts up his bag. “I’ll, like, get him a card or something,” Isco says, and beats it out of there.

Stopped at a red light on the way home, he glances down at his phone. Three messages from Alvaro -- which Isco ruthlessly skips -- and one from Marco.

_hey so did sergio tell u some of us r going out for my birthday nothing crazy just some place dani picked._ Somehow, he reads the text in Marco's voice: that breathless enthusiasm, the faint Basque accent (his dad, Marco's told him) and that low rumbling laugh lurking behind his words.

 _yeah,_ he writes back, _he did._

Marco responds almost immediately: _cool!!_

Cool. Isco rests his head against the cool leather of the steering wheel. Jesus, he's fucked.

*-*-*-*

A ragged chorus of cheers greets Marco's arrival at the bar, a little past midnight. He gives a silly little wave to the table, ducking his head with a bashful smile. It's gross. 

"Sorry," he says, raising his voice slightly to be heard over the background noise, "my family took me out to dinner."

"The birthday boy!" Sergio belows. "Come, let me embrace you, my son. My youngest child. You beautiful motherfucker."

Dani winces. "Jesus, Sergio, right in my ear -- let him sit down before you start with your weird shit."

Isco waves Marco over. "Over here, bro," he says. "There's room."

There isn't, really, and Alvaro -- who's sitting on the other side of Isco and has been trying to talk to him privately like they weren't in the middle of a _party_ with all of their _friends,_ ugh -- is none too pleased. But who cares, because when Marco squeezes his way into the booth Isco ends up halfway in Marco's lap, his arm over Marco's shoulders. 

"Thanks, _picha,_ " Marco says. 

Alvaro coughs, but Isco takes the high road and pretends he didn't hear it. "What do you want to drink?" 

"Shots!" Nacho shouts, leaning heavily against Lucas. Isco isn't sure if he's ordering more or making a suggestion; clearly, his alcohol tolerance has withered with the advent of fatherhood. (Quitter.) 

"Ah, beer's fine." Under the table, Marco places a stabilizing hand on Isco's leg, just above his knee. 

"Come on," Sergio goads. "It's your golden birthday -- live a little!"

"I don't know what that is?" Marco laughs. 

"No one does," Dani reassures him. "He made it up last year as an excuse to get shitfaced on his own birthday."

Sergio launches into an inebriated explanation of the whole system, with rambling asides and oversized hand gestures. He manages to draw Alvaro into the conversation, though, and when he looks to Isco and Marco, his gaze is sober and even calculating for a moment, before sliding back into drunken lassitude.

Isco tips his glass to him, and turns back to Marco. "How was dinner?"

"Really good," Marco says. "It's always nice to get the whole family together." A shadow passes over his face. Isco knows he's thinking about his mother, then.

Isco drops his hand below the table, lays it on top of Marco's. Marco flips his fingers over, tangles them with Isco's so they're holding hands.

Neither of them say anything about it. They drink, they yell out song requests when Lucas goes to take over the jukebox machine in the back and shit-talk what he ends up playing. Isco picks apart his napkin and throws littled wadded up balls down the collar of Dani's polo shirt when he's not looking, and Marco almost chokes on his beer laughing.

And through all that they're just... holding hands.

*-*-*-*

It's an early February practice, and the cold air burns like liquor in Isco's throat. He wipes his nose on the back of his gloved hand, tucks his sleeves down over his wrists. They're doing small-side rondos to warm up. Isco's paired with Luka in the middle of the circle, with Sergio, Marcelo, Dani, Alvaro and Marco on the outside. 

Zidane's lurking around the perimeter, rangy-limbed and sharp-eyed. Every so often he sticks a foot in himself and sends the ball in another direction, which Isco would resent as cheating if every single touch weren't so ruthlessly perfect.

He calls out instructions: "Good, Marco, that's good…. Faster, please.... Yes, like that, Dani...Good, good.. Alvaro, your pass on the outside of your left foot should be sharper."

Isco purposely doesn't look over at Alvaro. He doesn't need to. He already knows the mulish expression he'll be wearing. Alvaro has been taking things to personally for months, now. 

The ball whips across the circle: Sergio to Marcelo to Dani, then back to Sergio. He and Luka are working well together, though, putting pressure on the ball, and Sergio's next pass to Marco is a weak one. It sputters across the grass and Isco lunges for it, grinning -- only for Marco to beat him to the ball, neatly sending it between Isco's legs and back across the circle.

The guys erupt into laughter, slapping Marco on the back and teasing Isco for his slip-up. Even Zidane's smiling.

"Nutmegged by the kid!" Marcelo crows.

"Fucking merciless!" Sergio pulls Marco into a hug, ruffling his hair like a proud, bearded mother. Marco's face disappears behind one tattooed bicep. 

"You could've passed it to me. I was open right next to you," Alvaro says, overly loud. "You didn't have to send it through Isco's legs." 

Isco bristles at his tone, the presumption behind it. As if Isco needs _defending_ from Marco. "It's fine, I'm not mad." He shoots Marco a reassuring smile. "Si tú eres mi picha…"

Marco wriggles out of Sergio's grasp. "Yo soy tu bro!" His eyes are bright, his cheeks flushed with exertion and pride. One side of his hair is all sticking up.

He looks fucking stupid. Isco doesn't want to look away.

*-*-*-*

The thing is, they don't always fuck -- they do other stuff, too. That's how Isco puts it, when he imagines someone asking him about it: Sergio, or his brother, or Lopetegui, maybe. (He imagines trying to explain the situation to Zidane once, but then it devolves into a completely different kind of fantasy. It's nice to know his dick still appreciates maturity as well as youth.) 

"We do other stuff, too," he'd tell them. Even in his own head, it sounds shifty, despite the fact that it's true.

Sometimes they play video games, for example. it turns out Marco is Isco's favorite type of person to play against, in that he's not very good but he doesn't really mind. They spend an enjoyable afternoon sprawled out over the couches in Isco's living room, Isco slaughtering him over and over in _Call of Duty_ until Marco manages to knock him out with a lucky lobbed grenade. 

Marco celebrates like he's just hit the winning penalty in the World Cup, whipping off his shirt and sliding across the floor on his knees and… okay, fair, they do end up fucking on the couch, but that's not what they _planned_ to be doing.

Another time, Marco comes over when Isco has his son, and they all play football together: Isco, Junior, Marco, and the dogs. It's a glorious mess, all of them running and yelling pell-mell. At one point, Marco hefts up Junior under one arm and the football in the other, and runs, American-football style, all the way across the yard to the piles of winter scarves and hats serving as makeshift goal posts. Junior shrieks with laughter, and the dogs chime in, Messi with his big, old-dog bark and Bubu with his high-pitched yapping. 

"Foul! Red card! Automatic ejection!" Isco's laughing so hard he can barely breathe. He sinks down to his knees, then flops back onto the ground, hysterical tears blurring his vision.

Then Messi comes over and sits on his chest, woofling and farting and drooling, and that's pretty much the end of football for the day.

It's just. It's easy, all of it, in a way Isco would have never expected. It's not that they weren't friends before, because they were, but they've also been competing for minutes ever since Marco joined the squad back in August, along with Alvaro and Lucas and a half dozen other sharp-elbowed, hungry kids who've grown up in the shadow of two generations of _galacticos_. But Marco -- it never seems to faze him. He's always doing little things: sharing his water at practice, texting Isco stupid memes of basketball players and snarky comments about Dani's taste in music. And Isco, to his own surprise, never gets sick of him.

"We get along," is what he'd say. "We just get along."

*-*-*-*

The season rolls on, picking up speed in the last months like a rock hurtling ever-faster downhill. They don't win every game, but they win a lot, maybe enough: Betis, Bilbao, Alavés, Leganés. Everyone's tracking the table, counting the points left in play, the points separating them from Barca and Atleti. By silent agreement, no one talks about it.

Marco and Isco figure out other ways to spur each other on. The morning they play Gijon, Isco wakes up with Marco’s mouth around his cock. Isco scores two goals during the match and nearly bags a third. 

He posts a photo to Instagram when he gets home:

His phone chimes: _fuck you, bro, i was gonna post that photo!!_

Isco laughs. _so post it, picha._

Ten minutes later, his Instagram account lights up with a notification: 

The way Marco crops it, it's even clearer that his hand's on Isco's knee. Isco thinks about saying something, but then the microwave timer goes off for Junior's dinner, and he never bothers. They got the three points today. They're still first in La Liga. Fuck it.

*-*-*-*

Three days later, Isco returns the favor before the second leg versus Bayern — it seems like the polite thing to do.

Marco's fingers are stroking Isco's hair before he's fully awake. Isco hears the gasp when he realizes, the soft, weak way he says Isco's name.

Isco lets his mouth go slack, pulls back halfway -- and Marco gets the hint, tightening his fingers and pushing Isco down onto his dick. He fucks Isco's mouth with long, slow, dozy strokes, barely giving him time to breathe before pushing back in, making Isco gasp and grind his own hips against the mattress. He can't take Marco all the way into his throat or he won't have a voice during the match, but he goes as far as he dares, wrapping his hand around the rest of Marco's dick.

"Isco, shit, I'm gonna -- " but he's already coming, the sharp taste hitting Isco's tongue and spilling down from the the corners of his mouth. Isco's gotten annoyed at other guys who didn't warn him, but with Marco he doesn't really mind. He's not inconsiderate; he's just young... _and really into me,_ Isco realizes, and he can't help but touch himself at that.

"Nrrm," Marco says, coherently. "Wait. Wait." He reaches down and drags Isco into his arms for a slow, messy handjob that has Isco gasping and biting Marco's shoulder when he finally comes. 

*-*-*-*

That evening, Marco scores the final goal, the last exclamation point of the sentence, " _Puta madre,_ we're going to the semifinals!!!" 

In the locker room, Isco clicks open his camera app. Alvaro's dawdling at his locker between them, tying his shoes slowly and glancing at Isco in a way that telegraphs his intentions, but they're three matches away from _la duodécima_ and Alvaro can choke on those ugly-ass yellow Jumpmans.

He reaches over Alvaro's bent form, clicks [record](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=6&v=-ziF-X4DCH0) and zooms in. " _"Si tú eres mi bro…_ "

Marco's shirtless, all abdominal muscles and laugh lines and it's disgusting, really, the way he's smiling even before he looks up at the camera, the way Isco swallows his own spit when he points at the camera and finishes the line -- "yo soy tu picha!"

"Y lo sabes," Isco finishes. 

"So," Marco asks him later, while they're filing out of the Bernabeu, "are we making that a tradition now?" His shoulder bumps against Isco's in a way that could be accidental, except for how it's definitely not.

Isco thinks back to this morning. He runs his tongue over the slick fronts of his teeth. "Which part?"

Marco laughs. "Well, both of them."

Isco grins back. "Oh, obviously."

*-*-*-*

They fucking do it. They win La Liga… and in La Rosaleda of all places. The stadium where he saw his first football match, the stadium twenty minutes from his parents' house. The stadium where he decided he wanted to become a footballer.

Isco's watching the minutes run down from the bench, his hand a deathgrip on Marco's forearm, but even still the final whistle hits him like a blow to the solar plexus. He's running onto the pitch before he realizes it, screaming, hugging everyone he can get his hands on. His parents are here. His son is here.

"We did it!"

he says, kissing the top of Junior's head. "Hala Madrid!"

They wave to the cameras and Isco tries to pretend he's not weeping his damn eyes out.

They have him speak at the press conference afterwards, the local boy made good. The shuttering camera flashes and welter of reporters' questions match the spinning, exuberant chaos inside his head. He has no clue whatsoever what answers he's giving. He could be speaking in tongues.

After he's finished, Zidane pulls him aside, a hand on his shoulder. His fingers splay all the way from the seat of his sleeve to the edge of his collar. It feels like their steel grip is the only thing keeping him from drifting up and floating away to sea.

"Well done."

His voice is huskier than normal -- the way it was last year in Milan, Isco thinks. He's been crying, too.

"Thanks," Isco says. He can feel his blood in his temples.

"We're going to be getting on the bus in forty-five minutes," Zidane says evenly.

"Okay."

"If you wanted to see anyone before you left." Zidane looks at him for a long moment. "Do you understand what I'm saying."

At first, Isco thinks he means his son, but it's late; his parents have already taken Junior home, before their flight to Madrid tomorrow morning. But Zidane's still giving him the impenetrable, diamond-edged stare that always makes something in the back of Isco's neck tingle, and all of a sudden he gets it.

A good manager always knows his players. 

"Yeah." Isco swallows. "Yes. Okay. Thanks."

Zidane cups the base of Isco's neck, almost a caress but with more force behind it, then lets go. "Good."

Isco finds Marco in the locker room. Pepe and Marcelo are trying to teach him how to samba but he's laughing too hard to get it right, head thrown back, teeth flashing.

"Come on," Isco says, and grabs his wrist.

The stadium is still teeming with people: reporters, Liga officials and other VIPs. It's crazy for them to even consider it. But this was Isco's home, and even after four years away, he knows every broom closet and unused kit room, and they're gonna find one of them to fuck in. 

He leads Marco deeper into the bowels of the stadium. Marco slips his hand into Isco's, squeezes his fingers. Isco glances over, and Marco's grinning. 

They take the next corner at a run. 

**Author's Note:**

> The phrase that Isco and Marco keep parroting back to one another translates roughly to, "If you're my bro, I'm your dude." ("Picha" is also slang for "dick.") Here's [the scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xouZ00rHrlI) in which it originally appears, in _Ocho apellidos catalanes._ Any and all disparagement of Dani Carvajal's taste in music, Marco Asensio's videogaming prowess, and Alvaro Morata's emotional decision-making/taste in sneakers was purely fictional in nature.
> 
> Thank you so much to [ceeturnalia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/traveller/pseuds/ceeturnalia/), [eleanor_lavish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleanor_lavish/pseuds/eleanor_lavish), [Ark, ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ark)[brampersandon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brampersandon/pseuds/brampersandon) and [proximitywithoutintimacy](http://proximitywithoutintimacy.tumblr.com/) for listening to my kvetching about my inadequacies, and my best bud [reserve](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reserve) for letting me use her far-superior yuletide story as a decoy in this dance of deception. [go read it.](http://bit.ly/2DWjZg0) it's great. 
> 
> hehehehehehe


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